DJ Avicii has fans jumping for 'big, melodic' joy

When he plays 'Le7els,' the American crowd "goes completely mental," Avicii says.

Many songs put a smile on your face, but few compel you to jump out of your seat and flail wildly. DJ Avicii's Le7els is the latter kind of tune, and it has brought this week's On the Verge artist's music career to a higher level.

Pronounced success: The joyous single Le7els (pronounced "Levels") went No. 1 on USA TODAY's dance/club chart and sold 250,000 downloads, and the companion video has 13 million YouTube views.

Computer composer: Avicii, 22, born Tim Bergling in Sweden, was always interested in creating music, but had "never played an instrument (well)," he says. When Avicii learned he could compose music from a computer, he took to mastering the art of song production. Several YouTube tutorials later, and the artist who also goes by Tim Berg (for "more experimental, underground" music) was sharing original songs with friends, blogs and the electronic dance music site Beatport by his 18th birthday.

Avicii is born: Avici "means the lowest level of hell, it's just cool," says Avicii, who added the extra "i" to distinguish himself from a different Avici on MySpace. Avicii's "big, melodic" brand of house music has a core of catchy, repetitive tunes, like those in Le7elsand Penguin (which became Fade Into Darkness with the addition of vocals by Andreas Moe).

It starts at the piano bench: To develop most of his musical phrases, "I sit at the piano and start playing around," Avicii says. Then he uses his computer to re-create and compose around his winning piano melody. That was the process for Le7els, a song that samples Etta James' Something's Got a Hold on Me. Rapper Flo Rida uses Avicii's sample in his song Good Feeling, which is No. 4 on USA TODAY's top 40 airplay chart.

Penguin problem: For Penguin, Avicii's melody was inspired by a Penguin Café Orchestra song he heard in the movie Mary and Max. "I just thought it would be amazing to take (Perpetuum Mobile) and change the rhythm." Leona Lewis apparently thought so, too, as Avicii's melody is included in her song Collide. That became the source of a legal battle that has since been settled between the two artists' labels.

Moving on up: Avicii arrived on the American dance scene when he played a small stage at the 2010 Ultra Music Festival in Miami, the same year his song Street Dancer was No. 1 on Beatport. Last November, he signed with Interscope/Atom Empire, and now he's up for a Grammy with David Guetta (for best dance recording, Sunshine) and preparing to headline Ultra in March.

"(Headlining) is lot of pressure, because I haven't been (performing) for that long," says Avicii, who went from touring U.S. clubs with a couple hundred people in early 2011 to playing solo shows for thousands today. He says the recent EDM boom in America is a major factor in his success. "Everything's been growing so fast."

Americans love him: "In Europe, they don't go as crazy as they do here," Avicii says of U.S. audiences. "Here, they have glowsticks and straight-up energy. … People have my name tattooed." When Avicii plays Le7els, the American crowd "goes completely mental," he says.

Reciprocating the love: Avicii's January House for Hunger tour supports hunger relief charity Feeding America. "I feel so fortunate to be in a position where I can actually give something back," says Avicii, who is traveling by tour bus instead of plane to cut costs and hit his goal of a $1 million donation.

Jumping for joy: Avicii rarely takes a break from making music and performing — while vacationing in theCanary Islands last year, he still had two shows — but he loves what he does. "There's no better feeling than when you get that instant response from so many people (at a show)," he says. Especially in America, where "people aren't (just) dancing — they're jumping."

Via - USA Today

5 Crap USB Gadgets The World Has Never Needed & Never Will Need

CRAP USB GADGETSIt is remark­able just how much cheap crap we, as a plan­et, pro­duce each and every year. The envi­ron­men­tal impact is wor­ry­ing, land­fills are swelling and car­bon emis­sions must come down – yet more and more junk con­tin­ues to roll out of the fac­to­ry. In addi­tion to this, many seem to think that adding USB con­nec­tiv­i­ty (usu­al­ly for a small amount of power as opposed to real inter­fac­ing) to afore­men­tioned plas­tic junk instant­ly makes it more saleable.

So, would you spend your money on these periph­er­als?

USB Tie Fan Cool­er….Thing

Feel like you're tied to your desk all day and look­ing for the ulti­mate way to cool off? Look no fur­ther, all you need is theUSB tie cool­er from Thanko. Some­what resem­bling the collar-bombs worn by impris­oned school­child­ren in the 2002 film Bat­tle Royale, the fan clips to your neck and is then cov­ered up with the includ­ed silk tie.

CRAP USB GADGETS

Of course, it's USB pow­ered – so it's com­plete­ly use­less (yet still too embarass­ing to take off) unless you're near a com­put­er. Once you final­ly do get to your desk, find a spare USB port (by remov­ing non-essentials like mice and key­boards) and you'll be the coolest cat in the office.

That is until you sud­den­ly get up to tell Bren­da you need that report by 5, tear­ing your lap­top off the table, show­er­ing your co-workers with cof­fee and pub­licly reveal­ing the secret to your body tem­per­a­ture reg­u­la­tion. Still, at least you won't be hot under the col­lar?

Chick­en's Foot 2GB USB Stick

There are a lot of over­priced USB sticks on the mar­ket in all kinds of nov­el­ty shapes, capac­i­ties and sizes but most of them have a valid use – remov­able stor­age – that makes up for it. I am actu­al­ly hav­ing trou­ble with this par­tic­u­lar USBflash drive how­ev­er, as it appears to be in the shape of a chick­en's foot.

STUPID USB GADGET

This of course means that the bloody thing will never fit com­fort­ably in your pock­et, and might also have trou­ble fit­ting into com­put­ers mount­ed on a flat sur­face (I do believe the toes would get in the way).

This rather small 2GB capac­i­ty appendage will sit on your desk for hours with­out falling over – though you're prob­a­bly bet­ter off spend­ing the $30 on more space, rather than nov­el­ty form fac­tor.

USB Mini UV Tooth­brush Sani­tis­er

Noth­ing says "pearly whites" like a ster­ile tooth­brush (I guess?) and now you can ster­ilise yours right at your desk! Excit­ed? Well hold on junior, because there might just be a teen­cy ween­cy issue with afore­men­tioned USB tooth­brush sani­tis­er… and that'll be the USB part.

Who keeps their tooth­brush at their desk? More­over, who would take it out and actu­al­ly sani­tise it using this bloody thing? If tooth­brush san­i­ta­tion is high on your list of pri­or­i­ties then I don't think a mini USB tooth­brush sani­tis­er is going to cut it – you'll want the real deal.

Thus I con­clude there's prob­a­bly not much of a mar­ket for semi-dedicated tooth­brush sani­tis­ers who stow their oral clean­ing con­trap­tions in the office. Next.

USB Flower Pot Speak­er

Intro­duc­ing the USB Flower Pot Speak­er – because there's sim­ply too much space on your desk! Or should that be Flower Pod Speak­er, as the man­u­fac­tur­ers have clev­er­ly coined it? Regard­less, not only does it require full use of a USB port for power but it also isn't a real flower pot (which is a real shame).

STUPID USB GADGET

Don't try to water, plant or re-pot your new musi­cal chum for he's a sta­t­ic, life­less plas­tic dis­ap­point­ment who pro­duces no more than 2W RMS at the best of times. Maybe spend the money on some real speak­ers and a real plant instead…

USB Eye Mas­sager

Unfor­tu­nate­ly this isn't a case of affix­ing the wrong pho­to­graph to the wrong prod­uct descrip­tion, but a gen­uine prod­uct that is designed with an eye mas­sage in mind. If you've not already peeked at the image below then now is the time – just look at it…

CRAP USB GADGETS

Eye mas­sager? Real­ly? Not tor­ture device? Not "turn it round and make rude sym­bols at your boss" getting-fired device? I'm sup­posed to put this in my eyes? Accord­ing to the man­u­fac­tur­er:

USB Eye Mas­sager is the latest-designed health care Prod­uct spe­cial­ly for the Per­son which long time use their eyes, Such as the Com­put­er oper­a­tor.

I sup­pose that clears it up, then!

Con­clu­sion

It's not too late for new year res­o­lu­tions, and here's an easy one we can all stick to : in addi­tion to the prod­ucts on this list, don't buy cheap use­less USB crap. It might seem like a funny gift and even pro­vide 5 min­utes of laugh­ter but will ulti­mate­ly end up in a land­fill as wast­ed money, time, ener­gy and resources.

If you have any of your favourite crapUSB gad­gets then list them below, I'm dying to see what you've found…

Image Cred­it: Shut­ter­stock

Sent from aNYCELIFE iPhone

DJ Reach invades GIFT NY, Sat 1/21

Evie's Exclusive Body Painting Birthday Extravaganza! Sat 1/14 at GIFT NY Aqua Lounge

MASTERMIND JAPAN X MERCEDES BENZ G55

Japan­ese brand mas­ter­mind has teamed with lux­u­ry car man­u­fac­tur­er Mercedes-Benz on a one-of-a-kind offer­ing of theG55 Wagon. With mas­ter­mind brand­ing seen through­out the car, most promi­nent­ly on the spare-tire cover, the black aes­thet­ic seems to fit both com­pa­nies quite well. While it's unknown if this was mere­ly a col­lab­o­ra­tion for Fash­ion Week, or if the two brands plan on rolling out fur­ther edi­tions, it's always nice to find two com­pa­nies from com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent walks of life com­ing togeth­er for a project.

Source: eyescream.jp

Read more at Hypebeast.com

Wed 12/4 at Sky Room ft DJ Big Ben & Rick Wonder

Happy New Year!

The only way to ring in the NYCELIFE New Year is with friends, family and a special edicion Cuban cigar by Partagas and a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label. This ones for you Dad. I love and miss you more than words can describe. Rock In Paradise.